What is scuba diving's orange shovel?

[MBH]

I forget. What's the emergency hand signal for "I need the PADI wheel"?

 

[Mo2vation]

I forget. What's the emergency hand signal for "I need the PADI wheel"?

Same as "I need my SSI Wheel", I believe...

---
Ken

 

[MBH]

Is it like a steering the bus motion?

 

[under water]

If you need to advertise you're a diver, you're probably doing less than 50 dives a year. Not that that's horrible - I mean, if you want to feel like a diver, rock on.

Its just better to dive.
---
Ken

Not sure what you are saying here. If we dive less than 50 dives a year, we are what? pretending to be a diver?
Not as good as you somehow? For a lot of people, 50 dives a year is a lot (think snow-belt, think land-locked) and I bet a lot of them are darn good divers, enjoy it, and don't spend a ton of time talking about it on bulletin boards. I never thought it was a numbers game. Experience counts, but skill matters.
My orange whistle will stay on my d-ring where I know it is, I don't care who thinks it's dweeby.
For me the true equivalent of the orange shovel was probably the full foot US-Diver fins that I called flippers and the matching mask & snorkel that I took on my first boat dive. They were a carry over from snorkeling

 

[Ice9]

Wow! You guys are killing me! If we go by this list, I am a walking talking orange shovel!

1. Whistle (yellow) on BC. I actually needed this down in the carribean to signal a boat, so kinda glad I have it.
2. Retractor - I have a Suunto Cobra and this is very useful to have clipped to it.
3. Mesh backpack dive - I love my bag! I mean, what else should I carry my gear in?
4. Slap strap - Waaaay more comfy than the silicone, and it was free!

Good thing I don't have a rambo knife, or I'd have a full house!! Hehehe! I'm a total n00b, but I really find these things useful (just no rambo knife)...

 

[Thalassamania]

Although not entirely useless.. A complete set of brand new color coordinated dive gear. Stay away from this person.

A couple with matching gear is a double whammy

or it maybe a instructor (or a pair of instructors) who have yearly gear replacement at their shop.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

In Cozumel, there was a couple with matching flourescent gear. I'm not kidding. They were on our boat, which was divided into two teams/groups. They wouldn't stay with our group and they kept coming down to depth and then surfacing, back and forth.... The dive guide was trying to get them to come down and join us and STAY down. They weren't having any of it. Finally, because of the current and greater number of divers at depth, he just shook his head and gave up.

One diver with color-coordinated gear is bad enough. When it's TWO, just swim away... Far, far away... LOL

 

[Notso_Ken]

I'm not quite sure how else to ask it, when hiking you can almost always pick out new backpackers by the small orange colghans shovel in the side of their pack for digging poop pits.
usually when helping someone out who has this shovel I start with the very simplest and human caused reasons for gear malfunction
This shovel is one of those Good Ideas that while it does do exactly what is advertised, is usually ditched by the 3rd trip, because a stick works just as well and is therefore a waste of money.
So what bits of dive gear are like the orange shovel, totally functional but not needed, although they seem rational to have as a beginner.

And here I thought all those folks with the orange shovels were the smoke jumpers . . .

Ken

 

[loosebits]

Here's a setup that has you all beat. Keep in mind this girl was diving a single 80.

Deep Outdoors double bladder wing with their transpac style harness- both LP inflators connected. She had a Suunto cobra and a backup SPG. She also had three 2nd stages.

Now to top this off, she had hose wraps on every single one of her seven hoses. You may be doubting this as how many regs have 5 LP ports and 2 HP ports? Well, hers didn't. She had a splitter on one of her LP ports to accomodate this mess.

And of course - split fins

 

[Thalassamania]

Here's a setup that has you all beat. Keep in mind this girl was diving a single 80.

Deep Outdoors double bladder wing with their transpac style harness- both LP inflators connected. She had a Suunto cobra and a backup SPG. She also had three 2nd stages.

Now to top this off, she had hose wraps on every single one of her seven hoses. You may be doubting this as how many regs have 5 LP ports and 2 HP ports? Well, hers didn't. She had a splitter on one of her LP ports to accomodate this mess.

And of course - split fins

maybe she was an equipment tester?